1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for protecting magnetic stripe data in transit from the magnetic stripe reader to a host computer while maintaining compatibility with the data format contained within the magnetic stripe data. The present invention further relates to a magnetic stripe reader assembly which replaces the magnetic head in conventional point of sale terminals (POS) which encrypts the magnetic stripe information within the magnetic head preventing unauthorized access to said information. More particularly, the present invention relates to a secure magnetic stripe reader attachable to a POS or handheld computing device which enables the secure reading and writing of information on a single or multiple track magnetic stripe by encrypting the card data prior to entering the POS or PDA in a format transparent to the devices normal operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cards which have a magnetic stripe attached thereto are ubiquitous in modern society today. That is, nearly everyone carries one of the following cards, each of which typically have a magnetic stripe attached thereto: credit cards, bank cards, automatic teller machines cards (ATM cards), debit cards, identification cards, drivers' licenses, security access cards, check cashing cards, etc.
The necessity and usefulness of devices which decode the information on such cards are well known. The need to read and decode and save the information on such cards using low cost and portable computing devices including PDA's and cell phones has become increasingly evident in recent months. One such application is in reading the custom formats used in US state driver's licenses. To date, forged drivers licenses used to purchase alcohol and tobacco do not contain correctly encoded data on the attached magnetic stripe. The described invention can be used to read the various formats in use by various US state's department of motor vehicles and display the physical description recorded on the magnetic stripe. Liquor stores, bars, and law enforcement agencies can use this portable system to determine the authenticity of the identification cards being used to purchase controlled substances. One benefit of the current invention over previous art is the increased security of the device and the information transferred. In the age verification application, only the information necessary for the user identification is output from the head in a readable format. Other data such as the driver's license number is output in an encrypted format and stored for later verification of the identifications acceptance if required by law enforcement agencies.
Another application in using MSR card reader attachments with handheld computing devices such as PDA's and cell phones, is to process credit card and debit card transactions. In these applications, the wireless and movable nature of the POS transaction makes security a requirement. If clear text of the card data is allowed to enter the handheld, a virus or “Trojan horse” program could capture the data to compromise the card holder's monetary accounts. Card skimming, which is the illegal recording and use of credit/debit card information to make fraudulent purchases, currently represents approximately 25% of credit/debit card company losses. This number is expected to increase to over a billion dollars in the future. In spite or long standing regulations that no track data be stored by POS terminals, transaction processing gateways, or merchants in clear text formats it is common knowledge that this data is stored and has been compromised. Millions of credit and debit cards magnetic stripe data has been stolen from these sources and used to transact fraudulent transactions. The major credit and debit card brands have enacted new regulations in an attempt to curb availability of the magnetic stripe data. Unfortunately compliance to these new regulations could require replacing all POS terminals deployed. With millions of POS terminal in use the cost to the merchants for upgrading POS equipment to comply with the new regulations is prohibitive.
In addition to providing a low power, secure intelligent magnetic stripe reader for handheld computing application this invention can be used in legacy products to provide the additional security required in today's POS markets. The modules intelligent interface can be configured to various digital interfaces such as SPI, I2C, or serial TTL which are supported by the legacy equipment currently in use. In addition, the module can mimic the output of a conventional head providing encrypted data to the legacy equipment. In addition the module can output using new protocols such as Bluetooth.
Current wired and wireless transaction processing servers rely on whatever the networks “end to end” security is for protecting credit and debit card transactions. In many applications, the network is secure from the transaction terminal to the processing banks server. In some applications, most noticeably the use of cell phone and other handheld computing devices as the POS transaction terminal, the security provided by the network is less than ideal. WAP based transaction processing is subject to the security implementation provided by the wireless carrier. In the case of one such wireless provider, Nextel®, the encryption and hence the security of the data varies from clear text to 56 bit DES to 128 bit TDES. While the TDES meets the card industry standards for security, the others do not, which makes it impossible to guarantee end to end strong encryption of at least the TDES level. The present invention supports strong end to end encryption along with the ability to interface to banks legacy transaction processing systems and to in addition verify the cards authenticity.